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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Ax Files with your host David Axelrod.

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I sat down for my CNN show tonight with Cindy McCain, the widow of Senator John McCain,

an extraordinarily impactful leader and philanthropist in her own right to talk about the Senator, his legacy, her work, and where the country is today.

Here's that full conversation.

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Mrs. McCain, it's great to be with you here in your home.

Call me Cindy please.

Okay, it's been a little more than a year since your husband's passing in that wonderful national civic communion that surrounded that week of memorial.

So we're really a testament to his values and to the institutions he loved and represented.

But for you, it was much more than that, the loss. How are you doing and how is your family doing?

We're doing fine. It's my job right now to make sure that our family is everyone's in good shape.

And you know, there are very stages of grief and of processing and everything else. But we're doing fine. We're doing okay.

He was such a central figure we were talking earlier, you know, people used to phrase larger than life.

He was. But he's even in your family.

He was. He was the, you know, he was what we rallied around. He was our guiding light and our, you know, our savior, our warrior.

And so when you when you lose someone of such magnitude in any family, doesn't necessarily mean John, but I mean in any family, it's devastating.

And you kind of lose your rudder for a while.

And so, so for me, I've really had to make sure that I stepped up to the plate and made sure everyone's, you know, we're all together and we're all, you know, everyone's talking and everyone's, you know, I see everyone.

I make my rounds and make sure I see everybody.

Just welcome to New Grand. I did. Yes.

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